A Literature Review On The Vehicle Routing Problem With Multiple Depots
A Literature Review On The Vehicle Routing Problem With Multiple Depots
A Literature Review On The Vehicle Routing Problem With Multiple Depots
Survey
Escuela Internacional de Ciencias Econmicas y Administrativas, Universidad de La Sabana, km 7 autopista norte de Bogot D.C., Chia (Cundinamarca), Colombia
Engineering and Consulting SAS, Bogot, D.C., Colombia
c
Departamento de Ingeniera Industrial, Universidad del Norte, Km 5 va Puerto Colombia, Barranquilla (Atlntico), Colombia
d
Departamento de Ingeniera Industrial, Universidad de La Salle, Carrera 2 # 10-70, Bogot, D.C., Colombia
e
Departamento de Ingeniera Industrial, Universidad de la Costa, Calle 58 # 55-66, Barranquilla, Colombia
f
Fundacin Centro de Investigacin en Modelacin Empresarial del Caribe FCIMEC, Carrera 53 # 74-86 Oc.402, Barranquilla, Colombia
b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 3 August 2012
Received in revised form 28 October 2014
Accepted 31 October 2014
Available online 10 November 2014
Keywords:
Vehicle routing
Multiple depots
Exact algorithms
Heuristics
Survey
a b s t r a c t
In this paper, we present a state-of-the-art survey on the vehicle routing problem with multiple depots
(MDVRP). Our review considered papers published between 1988 and 2014, in which several variants of
the model are studied: time windows, split delivery, heterogeneous eet, periodic deliveries, and pickup
and delivery. The review also classies the approaches according to the single or multiple objectives that
are optimized. Some lines for further research are presented as well.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Physical distribution is one of the key functions in logistics
systems, involving the ow of products from manufacturing plants
or distribution centers through the transportation network to
consumers. It is a very costly function, especially for the distribution industries. The Operational Research literature has addressed
this problem by calling it as the vehicle routing problem (VRP). The
VRP is a generic name referring to a class of combinatorial optimization problems in which customers are to be served by a number
of vehicles. The vehicles leave the depot, serve customers in the
network and return to the depot after completion of their routes.
Each customer is described by a certain demand. This problem
was rstly proposed in the literature by Dantzig and Ramser
(1959). After then, considerable number of variants has been
considered: hard, soft and fuzzy service time windows, maximum
route length, pickup and delivery, backhauls, etc. (Cordeau,
Gendreau, Hertz, Laporte, & Sormany, 2005; Juan, Fauln,
Adelanteado, Grasman, & Montoya Torres, 2009; Lpez-Castro &
Montoya-Torres,
2011;
Montoya-Torres,
Alfonso-Lizarazo,
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J.R. Montoya-Torres), julian.
[email protected] (J. Lpez Franco), [email protected] (S. Nieto Isaza),
[email protected] (H. Felizzola Jimnez).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2014.10.029
0360-8352/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
116
Khairuddin, & Mourad, 2008; Mafoli, 2002) or its different variants: the capacitated VRP (Baldacci, Toth, & Vigo, 2010; Cordeau,
Laporte, Savelsbergh, & Vigo, 2007; Gendreau, Laporte, & Potvin,
2002; Laporte & Nobert, 1987; Laporte & Semet, 2002; Toth &
Vigo, 2002), the VRP with heterogeneous eet of vehicles
(Baldacci, Battarra, & Vigo, 2008; Baldacci, Toth, & Vigo, 2007;
Baldacci et al., 2010), VRP with time windows (VRPTW), pickup
and deliveries and periodic VRP (Solomon & Desrosiers, 1988),
dynamic VRP (DVRP) (Psaraftis, 1995), Periodic VRP (PVRP)
(Mourgaya & Vanderbeck, 2006), VRP with multiple trips (VPRMT)
(S
en & Blbl, 2008), Split Delivery vehicle routing problem
(SDVRP) (Archetti & Speranza, 2008). All of these works consider
only one depot. Fig. 1 presents a hierarchy of VRP variants. One
of these variants considers a well-known (Crevier, Cordeau, &
Laporte, 2007) more realistic situation in which the distributions
of goods is done from several depots to nal clients. This particular
distribution network can be solved as multiple individual single
depot VRPs, if and only if clients are evidently clustered around
each depot; otherwise a multi-depot-based approach has to be
used where clients are to be served from any of the depots using
the available eet of vehicles. In this paper, we consider the variant
of the vehicle routing problem known as Multiple Depots Vehicle
Routing Problem (MDVRP) in which more than one depot is considered (see Fig. 2). The reader must note that most exact algorithms
for solving the classical VRP model are difcult to be adapted for
solving the MDVRP.
According to Renaud, Laporte, and Boctor (1996), the MDVRP
can be formally described as follows. Let G = (V,E) be a graph,
where V is the set of nodes and E is the set of arcs or edges
connecting each pair of nodes. The set V is further partitioned into
two subsets: Vc = {v1, v2, . . . , vN} which is the set of customers to be
served; and Vd = {vN+1, vN+2, . . . , vM} which is the set of depots. Each
customer vi 2 Vc has a nonnegative demand di. Each arc belong to
the set E has associated a cost, distance or travel time cij. There
are a total of K vehicles, each one with capacity Pk. The problem
consists on determining a set of vehicle routes in such a way that:
(i) each vehicle route starts and ends at the same depot, (ii) each
customer is serviced exactly once by a vehicle, (iii) the total
demand of each route does not exceed the vehicle capacity, and
(iv) the total cost of the distribution is minimized. According to
Kulkarni and Bhave (1985), a mathematical model of the MDVRP
requires the denition of binary decision variables xijk to be equal
to 1 if the pair of nodes i and j are in the route of vehicle k, and
0 otherwise. Auxiliary variables yi are required in order to avoid
subtour elimination. According to this last reference, the model is
as follows:
NM
K
X NM
XX
Minimize
cij xijk
i1 j1 k1
Subject to :
NM
K
XX
xijk 1 j 1; .. .; N
xijk 1 i 1;. .. ;N
i1 k1
NM
K
XX
j1 k1
periodic
VRP
Multiple
depots
N
M
X
xihk
N
M
X
distance or time
constraints
capacity
constraints
i1
time windows
NM
X
xhjk 0
j1
Qi
i1
NM
X
k 1;. .. ;K
h 1; .. .; N M
xijk 6 Pk k 1; .. .; K
cij xijk 6 T k k 1; .. .; K
j1
NM
X NM
X
with loading
& unloading
i1 j1
backhaul
NM
X
N
X
xijk 6 1 k 1; .. .; K
iN1 j1
NM
X
N
X
xijk 6 1 k 1; .. .; K
jN1 i1
depot is source
& destination
Fig. 1. Different variants of the VRP (adapted from Weise et al., 2010).
9
10
yi yj M N
V
X
xijk 6 M N 1 for i 6 ij 6 M N 1
117
k1
11
1.2. Motivation for a review of research papers on MDVRP
The MDVRP is more challenging and sophisticated than the single-depot VRP. The variant with multiple depots appears rst in
the literature on the works of Kulkarni and Bhave (1985), and
Laporte, Nobert, and Taillefer (1988) and Carpaneto, Dellamico,
Fischetti, and Toth (1989). Since then, considerable amount of
research has been published (see Table 1) in the form of journal
paper, conference paper, research/technical report, thesis or book.
To the best of our knowledge, despite the great amount of research
papers published, there is no rigorous literature survey exclusively
devoted to the vehicle routing problem with multiple depots. A
short overview of academic works was proposed by Liu, Jiang,
Liu, and Liu (2011), but only presenting the most representative
research papers. From the 58 cited references in their paper, only
23 of them explicitly refer to the MDVRP. Besides, these authors
focus on the problem denition, solution methods (dividing them
into exact algorithms, heuristics and meta-heuristics) and mention
some problem variants. In fact, no actual systematic review was
presented in that paper. Our intention now is to present a rigorous
review of scientic literature, by presenting a taxonomic classication of those works. Most of the published works focus on the single objective problem, while a few consider the multi-objective
case. In this paper, we intend to provide an analysis of both single
and multiple objective problems.
1.3. Review methodology
This paper presents a review of relevant literature on the
vehicle routing problem with multiple depots, with both single
and multiple objective functions. An ambitious search was conducted using the library databases covering most of the major journals. Some conference papers are also included in this review. In
addition, the websites of leading research groups and the principal
authors of major publications were also searched for further information about their research projects (Ph.D. projects and sponsored
projects) and publications. We intentionally excluded working
papers, theses and research reports not available online on the
Internet because they are very difcult to obtain.
The initial collection of references was screened rst for their
relevance and their signicance for the purpose of this review. In
order to control the length of this paper, only some representative
publications were selected to be explained in detail within the text
of this manuscript, which are authored by leading researchers or
groups. These selected authors and research groups have, in fact,
published a long list of research papers and reports in the eld. A
collection of a total of 147 representative publications are
Table 1
Number and types of publications on MDVRP.
Type of publication
Total
Journal
Conference
Thesis
Technical report
Book/book chapter
Total
125
28
7
4
9
173
118
2.2. Heuristics
Because the NP-hardness of the MDVRP, several heuristic
algorithms have been proposed in the literature. This section summarizes some of the most relevant works concerning different variants of the problem. The rst works were published in the 1990s,
in order to solve the capacitated version. Min, Current, and
Schilling (1992) studied the version of the MDVRP with backhauling and proposed a heuristic procedure based on problem
decomposition. Hadjiconstantinou and Baldacci (1998) considered
a real-life problem taken from a company supplying maintenance
services. Their problem consists on determining the boundaries
of the geographic areas served by each depot, the list of customers
visited each day and the routes followed by the gangs. The objective is to provide improved customer service at minimum operating cost subject to constraints on frequency of visits, service time
requirements, customer preferences for visiting on particular days
and other routing constraints. This situation was solved using the
periodic variant: MDPVRP for which a ve-level heuristic was proposed: rst and second levels solve the problem of determining the
service areas and service days (the periodic VRP); third level solves
the VRP for each day; fourth level solves a TSP for each route, and
fth level seeks the optimization of routes.
Salhi and Sari (1997) proposed the so-called multi-level composite heuristic. This heuristic found as good solutions as those
known at that time in the literature but using only 5 to 10% of their
computing time. The heuristic was also tested on the problem with
heterogeneous eet. Salhi and Nagy (1999) proposed an insertionbased heuristic in order to minimize routing cost. Later, these
authors (Nagy & Salhi, 2005) also studied the problem with pickup
and deliveries (MDVRPPD). Their approach avoids the concept of
insertion and proposes a method that treats pickups and deliveries
in an integrated manner. The procedure rst nds a solution to the
VRP, then it modies this solution to make it feasible for the VRPPD
and it nally ensures that it is also feasible for the multi-depot
case. Jin, Guo, Wang, and Lim (2004) modeled the MDVRP as a
binary programming problem. Two solving methodologies were
presented. The rst one is a two-stage approach that decomposes
and solves the problem into two independent subproblems:
assignment and routing. The second proposed approach treats both
assignment and routing problems in an integrated manner. Their
experimental results showed that the one-stage algorithm outperforms the other one.
The HFMDVRP, in which heterogeneous eet of vehicles is
available have captured the attention of researchers since the work
presented by Salhi and Sari (1997). Irnich (2000) proposed a set
covering heuristic coupled with column generation and branchand-price algorithm for cost minimization for the heterogeneous
eet and pickup and delivery MDVRP. Dondo and Cerd (2007)
proposed a MILP model as well as a three-stage heuristic. Before,
a preprocessing stage for node clustering is performed and a more
compact cluster-based MILP problem formulation is developed.
Many other papers have been appeared in literature on or before
2007 and solution approaches have primarily been focused on
meta-heuristic algorithms. Hence, this will be discussed more in
detail in the next subsection.
Concerning the periodic MDVRP, few works appear in literature
with heuristic algorithm as solution approach. We have identied
only the works of Hadjiconstantinou and Baldacci (1998), Vianna,
Ochi, and Drummond (1999), Yang and Chu (2000), Maischberger
and Cordeau (2011), and Maya, Srensen, and Goos (2012). The
problem with time windows was studied by Chiu, Lee, and Chang
(2006) who presented a two-phase heuristic method. In contrast
with other works in literature, these authors considered the waiting time as objective function. Results indicate that the waiting
time has a signicant impact on the total distribution time and
the number of vehicles used when solving test problems with narrow time windows. The authors also considered a real-life case
study of a logistics company in Taiwan.
Tsirimpas, Tatarakis, Minis, and Kyriakidis (2007) considered
the case of a single vehicle with limited capacity, multiple-products and multiple depot returns. Another characteristic of their
problem is that the sequence of visits to customer is predened.
They developed a suitable dynamic programming algorithm for
the determination of the optimal routing policy. For the MDSDVRP
which consists on the combination of the MDVRP and the Split
Delivery VRP (SDVRP). The work of Gulczynski, Golden, and
Wasil (2011) developed an integer programming-based heuristic.
The objective of this study was to determine the reduction in traveled distance that can be achieved by allowing split deliveries
among vehicles based at the same depot and vehicles based at different depots. The multi-depot capacitated vehicle routing problem with split delivery (MDCVRPSD) is studied by Liu, Jiang,
Fung, Chen, and Liu (2010). A mathematical model is proposed
based on a graph model. The objective function is the minimization
of movements of empty vehicle. A greedy algorithm is proposed as
well, in order to solve large-scale instances. More recent works on
the application of dedicated heuristics include the work of Vahed,
Crainic, Gendreau, and Rei (in press) for the case of a MDVRP with
the objective of determining the optimal vehicle eet size, and the
work of Afshar-Nadja and Afshar-Nadja (in press) for the study
of the time-dependent MDVRP with heterogeneous vehicles and
time windows.
2.3. Meta-heuristics
As for other NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems,
meta-heuristic procedures have been employed by several
researchers for efciently solving the single-objective MDVRP.
The rst meta-heuristic was proposed in the work of Renaud,
Laporte et al. (1996) who study the MDVRP with the constraints
of vehicle capacities and maximum duration of routes (e.g. the
time of a route cannot exceed the maximum working time of the
vehicle). The objective to be optimized is the total operational cost.
These authors proposed a Tabu Search algorithm for which the initial solution is built using the Improved Petal heuristic of Renaud,
Boctor, and Laporte (1996b). Experiments were carried out using
119
120
number and location of depots and hubs. Also, the client assignment problem is addressed. These authors develop a local search
heuristic. As a real-life problem is solved, additional features are
included in the algorithm in order to take into account the topography of the country (which is characterized by mountains) by
considering maximum route length. The decision support system
allowed the solution of large-sized instances with various millions
of variables and constraints. The paper of Pisinger and Ropke
(2007) studied the MDVRPPD, together with the variants of time
windows and vehicle capacity constraint. These authors proposed
an Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search procedure in order to
minimize total routing cost. Flisberg, Lidn, and Rnnqvist (2009)
also considered heterogeneous eet of vehicles and time windows
constraints, in addition to pickups and split deliveries: their casestudy is taken from a forest company in Sweden. Schmid,
Doerner, Hartl, and Salazar-Gonzlez (2010) studied a realistic case
inspired from companies in the concrete industry, and presented a
mixed integer linear program (MILP) and a Variable Neighborhood
Search (VNS) procedure to minimize routing cost for the variant
with split deliveries. Mirabi, Fatemi Ghomi, and Jolai (2010)
addressed the problem of minimizing the delivery time of vehicles.
They compared three hybrid heuristics, each one combining
elements from both constructive heuristic search and improvement techniques. The improvement techniques are deterministic,
stochastic and simulated annealing (SA) methods.
Crevier et al. (2007) considered a MDVRP in which there are
intermediate depots along vehicles routes where they may be
replenished. This problem was inspired from a real-life application
at the city of Montreal, Canada. A heuristic combining adaptive
memory, tabu search and integer programming was proposed.
The model allows the assignment of vehicles to routes that may
begin and nish at the same depot or that connect two depots to
increase the capacity of vehicles to deliver goods. Zhen and
Zhang (2009) considered a similar problem and proposed a heuristic combining the adaptive memory principle, a Tabu Search
method for the solution of subproblems, and integer programming.
Another variant of the MDVRP appears in the work of Zarandi et al.
(2011). These authors studied the fuzzy version of the Capacitated
Location-Routing Problem (CLRP) with multiple depots in which
the location of depots have to be dened as well as the routes of
vehicles. Fuzzy travel times between nodes and time window to
meet the demand of each customer are considered. A simulationembedded Simulated Annealing (SA) procedure was proposed.
The framework was tested using standard data sets.
A good manner of improving the performance of meta-heuristics is to generate good initial solutions. Ho, Ho, Ji, and Lau
(2008) proposed the use of the well-known Clarke & Wright
Savings (C&WS) algorithm (Clarke & Wright, 1964) to generate
initial solutions, as commonly used for other vehicle routing problems (Juan et al., 2009). Once the solution is generated, the Nearest
Neighbor (NN) heuristic is employed to improve such solution. In
comparison with the random generation of initial solutions, their
experiments showed that this hybrid C&WS + NN approach produces better results regarding total delivery time. Li and Liu
(2008) considered the multi-depot open vehicle routing problem
with replenishment during the execution of routes. They proposed
a model and an Ant Colony Optimization resolution procedure.
Other application of the Ant Colony Optimization paradigm can
be found in the works of Wang (2013) and Narasimha,
Kivelevitch, Sharma, and Kumar (2013). These last authors studied
the MDVRP with minimization of the longest travel distance of a
vehicle.
Vidal et al. (2010, 2011) proposed a general framework to solve a
family of vehicle routing problems, including the multi-depot VRP,
the periodic VRP and the multi-depot periodic VRP with capacitated
vehicles and constrained route duration. Their meta-heuristic
combines the exploration breadth of population-based evolutionary search, the aggressive improvement capabilities of neighborhood search based procedures and advanced population diversity
management strategies. These authors improved the best-known
solutions and even obtained optimal values for these three problem
cases. Recent years on MDVRP research have witnessed the use of
variable neighborhood search (VNS) algorithm for the resolution
of various variants of the problem (Kuo & Wang, 2012; Salhi,
Imran, & Wassan, 2014; Xu & Jiang, 2014; Xu, Wang, & Yang,
2012). A realistic application of MDVRP found in vessel routing
was studied by Hirsch, Schroeder, Maggiar, and Dolinskaya
(2014). These authors proposed the implementation of various heuristics, including GRASP (Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure). More recently, the trend has been focused on the use of
hybrid meta-heuristics algorithms. Liu and Yu (2013) presented a
hybridized genetic algorithm ant colony optimization procedure
to minimize the maximum travel distance of a vehicle in a system
with heterogeneous eet of vehicles. Liu (2013) proposed to couple
the genetic algorithm with bee colony optimization and simulated
annealing to solve the classical MDVRP. Rahimi-Vahed, Crainic,
Gendreau, and Rei (2013) employed path relinking for the case of
capacitated MDVRP with route duration constraint. Vidal, Crainic,
Gendreau, and Prins (2014) proposed a hybrid genetic algorithm
with iterated local search and dynamic programming was presented for the classical MDVRP with unconstrained vehicle eet.
Subramanian, Uchoa, and Ochi (2013) proposed a matheuristic procedure for the cases of the MDVRP and MDRVP with mixed pick up
and deliveries. Their algorithm is based on iterated local search and
exploits set partitioning models at certain stages of the procedure
to obtain competitive solutions. Sitek, Wikarek, and Grzybowska
(2014) presented a multi-agent system coupled with a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model and Constraint Programming
(CP) for the multi-echelon capacitated vehicle routing problem.
121
160
140
120
100
Number of
papers
80
60
52
51
2006-2010
2011-2014
40
20
0
1980-1985
1986-1990
1991-1995
13
1996-2000
22
2001-2005
Year
1984
1985
1987
1988
1989
1992
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
% of papers
Laporte et al. (1894)
Kulkarni and Bhave (1985)
Laporte and Nobert (1987)
Laporte et al. (1988)
Laporte (1989)
Carpaneto, Dellamico, Fischetti, and Toth (1989)
Min et al. (1992)
Wilger and Maurer (1992)
Chao et al. (1993)
Renaud, Laporte et al. (1996)
Filipec et al. (1997)
Salhi and Sari (1997)
Cordeau et al. (1997)
Salhi et al. (1998)
Hadjiconstantinou and Baldacci (1998)
Vianna et al. (1999)
Tzn and Burke (1999)
Salhi and Nagy (1999)
Irnich (2000)
Filipec et al. (2000)
Skok, Skrlec, and Krajcar (2000)
Yang and Chu (2000)
Thangiah and Salhi (2001)
Skok, Skrlec, and Krajcar (2001)
Cordeau et al. (2001)
Chan, Carter, and Burnes (2001)
Wu et al. (2002)
Angelelli and Speranza (2002)
Zhang, Jiang, and Tang (2002)
Giosa, Tansini, and Viera (2002)
Dondo et al. (2003)
Kazaz and Altinkemer (2003)
Matos and Oliveira (2004)
Wasner and Zapfel (2004)
Jin et al. (2004)
Mingozzi (2005)
Nagy and Salhi (2005)
Polacek et al. (2005)
Lim and Wang (2005)
Baltz, Dubhashi, Tansini, Srivastav, and Werth (2005)
Songyan, Akio, and Bai (2005)
Jin et al. (2005)
Songyan and Akio (2005)
Parthanadee and Logendran (2006)
Yang, Cui, and Cheng (2006)
Chiu et al. (2006)
Lim and Zhu (2006)
Dondo and Cerd (2007)
Jeon et al. (2007)
Crevier et al. (2007)
Bae, Hwang, Cho, and Goan (2007)
Pisinger and Ropke (2007)
Constraints
Solution method
Time Windows
Heterogeneous eet
Capacitated
Periodic
Split delivery
Other
Exact
Heuristic
Meta-heuristic
26%
21%
38%
12%
11%
5%
26%
31%
X
X
X
X
X
X
45%
57%
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
1993
1996
1997
Reference
122
Table A1
Reviewed papers about the single-objective MDVRP.
2008
2010
2011
2012
2013
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
2009
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
123
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Split delivery
2014
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Table A1 (continued)
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Exact
Solution method
Other
Constraints
Time Windows
Heuristic
Meta-heuristic
124
4. Analysis of literature
As pointed out before, since the rst publication on multi-depot
vehicle routing problem appeared in 1984. Since there, more than
145 papers have been published up to date in the scientic
literature about this problem and its variants. Between the middle
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
2014
2011
2010
2005
2006
2009
Meta-heuristic
Heuristic
35%
Exact
12%
41%
X
6%
12%
12%
41%
12%
29%
% of papers
Lin and Kwok (2005)
Tan et al. (2006)
Lau et al. (2009)
Hasanpour et al. (2009)
Ombuki-Berman and Hanshar (2009)
Dharmapriya and Siyambalapitiya (2010)
Tavakkoli-Moghaddam et al. (2010)
Jiang and Ding (2010)
Lau et al. (2010)
Weise et al. (2010)
Ghoseiri and Ghannadpour (2010)
Venkatasubbaiah et al. (2011)
Li and Liu (2011)
Adelzadeh et al. (in press)
Martnez-Salazar et al. (2014)
Mirabi (2014)
Rodrigues Pereira Ramos et al. (2014)
Solution method
Heterogeneous eet
Capacitated
Periodic
Split delivery
Other
Constraints
Time windows
Reference
Year
Table A2
Reviewed papers about the multi-objective MDVRP.
82%
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
125
of the 1980s (when the rst works on the MDVRP were published)
and the end of the twentieth century, very few papers were proposed in the literature (see Fig. 3): only 18 publications (excluding
those published in 2000), giving an average of 1.12 papers per year.
Between 2000 and 2005, there was an increase in the number of
publication on MDVRP with an average of 4.33 publications per
year. This gives a total of 44 publications until 2005 inclusive.
The most impressive growing on the number of papers published
is observed between 2006 and 2014 with a total 103 publications,
giving an average of 10.4 papers per year in the period 20062010
and 12.75 paper per year in the period 20112014 inclusive.
As can be seen, there is a clearly increasing trend showing the
growing interest in this eld. It is reasonable to expect that in
the coming years the MDVRP will receive an ever large amount
of attention. There are however some remarks to be made. As
shown in Fig. 4, most of the works have been focused on the minimization of cost, distance or time. The papers dealing with vehicle
load balancing are in fact papers that seek to optimize multiple
objectives simultaneously (very often cost and vehicle load). As
presented in previous sections of this review (see also Fig. 4), the
majority of published works deals with the single objective
problem. While this problem is of theoretical interest, very often
decision-makers are faced to optimize multiple (contradictory)
objectives. Very few published works deals with multi-objective
problem. Hence, this gap in current research could be closed by
proposing efcient and effective solution approaches for multiobjective environments.
It is also interesting to study the different methodologies and
techniques that the authors apply in the reviewed literature.
Fig. 5 shows two pie charts with this distribution: it rst classies
the approaches as exact, heuristics and meta-heuristics algorithms,
while the second pie presents a distribution of the different
approximate algorithms employed in the reviewed literature. We
rst observe that exact algorithms (branch and bound, mathematical programming) are employed in 25% of reviewed papers. We
have to consider that these techniques have proven to be useful
for simplied combinatorial optimization problems, specic
settings and/or small instances. Hence, a larger focus is needed
on approaches able to solve larger instances. Because of the NPhardness of the MDVRP, approximate heuristics have also been
proposed. Under the category of heuristic algorithms, we have
classied many different algorithms and ad-hoc methods that are
specic and do not contain a well-known meta-heuristic template.
This represents 33% of the reviewed papers. For the other 42% a
meta-heuristic algorithm is proposed. Among the available procedures, Tabu Search (TS), genetic algorithms (GA) and simulated
annealing (SA) have been the most employed in the reviewed
literature. The other meta-heuristics have been less employed:
ant colony optimization and variable neighborhood search. Clearly,
there is a large opportunity for research here. Meta-heuristics have
long ago established themselves as state-of-the-art methodologies
for the vast majority of vehicle routing problems.
126
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